Due to the advent of cable television, direct satellite systems, and other television program broadcast systems, television viewers have very large numbers of programs from which to select. Sophisticated systems have been developed to assist a viewer in selecting programs to view or record. One such system is an Electronic Program Guide (EPG).
An EPG is an interactive, on screen equivalent to TV listings found in local newspapers or other print media. An EPG can provide up to 20 different kinds of information about each program that is within the time frame covered by the EPG. The time frame typically ranges from the next hour up to seven days in advance. The information contained in an EPG includes program identification information such as, program title, start time, end time, time remaining, topic, theme, actors, writer, production studio, awards, keywords, release date, director, and a brief description. EPG program information is usually displayed in a two-dimensional table or grid format with time on one axis and channel number on the other axis.
Unlike non-interactive guides that reside on a dedicated channel and merely scroll through the current programming on other channels, EPGs allow viewers to select any channel at any time within the EPG's time range. Further EPG features include the ability to highlight individual cells of the grid containing program information. Once highlighted the viewer can perform functions pertaining to that highlighted program. For instance, the viewer could instantly switch to that program if it is currently being aired. Viewers could also program one touch video cassette recording (VCR) or the like if the television is properly configured and connected to a recording device. Such EPGs are known in the art and are described, for instance, in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,353,121, 5,479,268, and 5,479,266.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,515,106, Chaney, describes a data packet structure which may be used to implement an EPG system. The data packet structure is designed so that both the channel information (e.g., channel name, call letters, channel number, type, etc.) and the program identification information (e.g., content, title, rating, star, etc.) relating to a program may be transmitted from a program guide database provider to a receiving apparatus such as a television efficiently.
In a system capable of displaying an EPG, an electronic host device stores records corresponding to each upcoming television program within the EPG's time frame. Each record contains program identification data that is unique to a particular upcoming television program. Program identification data includes at least one of program title, start time, end time, time remaining, topic, theme, actors, writer, production studio, awards, keywords, release date, director, and a brief description. Moreover, each record comprises a plurality of program identification fields, including at least one field for topic, theme, description, title, actors, roles, director, writer, production studio, awards, keywords, or release date. The records are adapted so that the program identification data is separated and placed into a corresponding program identification field upon being stored. The records are updated periodically by both deleting records of programs that have previously aired and adding new records of upcoming programs that fall within the EPG's time frame as time passes. The content of an EPG at any one time consists of those records that are currently stored by the electronic host device at that time. An EPG is displayed on a display module, such as a television, that is associated with the electronic host device.
EPG systems often store a large number of records for upcoming programs, facilitating an EPG to display a television programming schedule that covers a significant period of time. As such, an EPG can be used to find upcoming programs that may be of interest to a user days in advance of the program being aired. Thus, a need exists for a user to be able to search an EPG for upcoming programs that match a user's interests.
These searching mechanisms may comprise a continuous searching mechanism or a non-continuous searching mechanism. Non-continuous searching mechanisms, when activated, perform a one-time search of the records based on a user selected search criterion. On the other hand, a continuous searching mechanism, when activated, performs ongoing, repetitive searches of the records based on a user selected search criterion.
For example, a user may conduct an alphabetical search (e.g., “AlphaSort search”) so that the system is programmed to search for programs having the user composed text string in the title of the program and then display the result in an alphabetical order. In one embodiment, the system conducts a one time, alphabetical search of the “title fields” of the currently stored EPG records. If the title field of a record has data that matches the user composed text string, that record will be delineated as a “match.” Once all of the records are searched, the upcoming programs whose records were delineated as matches are displayed in an alphabetized form in a user interface display. A user can then highlight a cell on the user interface that corresponds to an upcoming program and perform certain functions pertaining to that upcoming program.
One such function that can be performed by highlighting a program cell is the More Details feature. However, the More Details option is not limited to program cells resulting from an AlphaSort search. The More Details operation can be performed on any highlighted program cell, such as a program cell in an EPG menu. The More Details operation is activated by highlighting and selecting a particular program cell or by selecting a More Details button or icon located in a channel banner. Once activated, an interface is displayed that contains program identification information relating to the selected program, such as actors, roles, director, writer, production studio, etc. A user can then perform a More Details search by selecting a cell that contains particular program identification information. For example, suppose a user selected a cell in the More Details interface that contained a particular actor's name. By highlighting that cell and activating a search, a one-time search of the currently stored records is conducted using the actor's name as the search criteria. Records that contain data corresponding to the actor's name in the actor field are delineated as matching records. The upcoming programs corresponding to the matching records are then displayed in list form in a More Details search results interface.
Another example of another search is a “Scout” search which may, for example, searches a user-entered text in the EPG data, and display any matched programs, without regards as to whether the found results are alphabetized. In addition, this type of search is typically implemented as a continuous search such that as new EPG data are received overtime, the same search criteria will be applied automatically to update the search result.
If a user conducts a search such as AlphaSort or More Details and subsequently decides that he or she wishes to perform a different type of search such as Scout, using the same search criteria, he or she would normally be required to exit the first type of search, be it AlphaSort or More Details, thereby losing the desired search criteria. The user must then access the second type of search and reenter the desired search criteria a second time. Thus, without a means to specifically instruct the system to convert a first-type search criterion into second-type search criterion, the user is forced to enter redundant information. This is a waste of the user's time and effort.